What Book!?: Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop

What Book!? is a lively anthology of modern mindful poetry, featuring 330 selections from 125 contributors. Also included are "mind-writing exercises" by Allen Ginsberg and a meditation by Thich Nhat Hanh. Themes include love, nature, pacifism and violence, the avant-garde, family, silence, and song. The contents include original work and translations; performance art andWhat Book!? is a lively anthology of modern mindful poetry, featuring 330 selections from 125 contributors. Also included are "mind-writing exercises" by Allen Ginsberg and a meditation by Thich Nhat Hanh. Themes include love, nature, pacifism and violence, the avant-garde, family, silence, and song. The contents include original work and translations; performance art and conceptual art; lyrics, arias, and blues; picture poems and calligraphy; prose poetry and sonnets; haiku; meditations and sutras; journal entries; bucolics; jeremiads; postmodernism; and other artifacts from the intersection of meditation and art. Its rich tapestry of voices includes Peter Coyote, Maxine Hong Kingston, Yoko Ono, Czeslaw Milosz, Robinson Jeffers, Yusef Komunyakaa, Lawson Inada, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Laurie Anderson, John Cage, Thomas Merton, Robert Aitken, Norman Fischer, Gary Snyder, Diane de Prima, Mary Oliver, Stephen Mitchell, bell hooks, Adam Yauch, brand-new discoveries, and children of all ages....more

Community Reviews

Mr. Gach is on goodreads and mentioned his book, so I thought I'd get it out from the library and see what I thought. Those that know me can attest that I'm not really much of an alternative religion person so I wasn't sure if I'd care for this at all. It's not that I don't think eastern religions are invalid or anything, it's just that I don't really see myself as the calm, meditative type. Hell, I can barely settle down long enough to write a review. So I had no idea if this was going to workMr. Gach is on goodreads and mentioned his book, so I thought I'd get it out from the library and see what I thought. Those that know me can attest that I'm not really much of an alternative religion person so I wasn't sure if I'd care for this at all. It's not that I don't think eastern religions are invalid or anything, it's just that I don't really see myself as the calm, meditative type. Hell, I can barely settle down long enough to write a review. So I had no idea if this was going to work for me at all.

The interesting thing, and much to the editor's credit, is that it not only worked for me, it works as great anthology of solid poems. Ranging from anonymous nuns to Alan Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, with some Thomas Merton thrown in for good measure, Gach has provided the reader with a wide range of reflective poems, without going so far into the religious aspect of things as to turn off a reader that's not of the faith. In addition, he put in place two different ideas for collecting the poems that I thought worked perfectly for the collection.

First, the poems flow into each other. If a poem is only a few lines long, the next poem begins immediately after it, not waiting for the next page to tell its tale. There is no lost white space to lose the flow of the poetry. Like creeks into streams into rivers, they flow together from one page to the next. While this would not work for all anthologies it just seems to me to be perfect for a book like this one.

Secondly, there are no firm chapter breaks. Instead, Gach puts a little footer on each page which changes as the theme of the poems do. Since the poems all ebb and flow together, I rarely cared about the change, only looking at it from time to time if I saw a new theme developing.

But perhaps the best part of this anthology is the variety of the poems themselves. There's free verse, of course, but also prose poems, haiku (quite a bit of haiku, actually, pound for pound), verse, poetic conversations, and even a little written artwork, reproduced as clearly as possible in a small trade. There's experimental work side by side with more traditional poetic forms, with no consideration as to what's better or worse. If they fit the theme, they show up. To my mind, that's how to make a good anthology--keep the poetry different enough, yet true to the theme. Otherwise, monotony can set in.

I opted not to pull any particular poems for the review because of the difference in writing styles. It would be impossible to give a reasonable sample within in the scope of this space. If you are looking for a collection of reflective poetry in all shapes and sizes, I think you'll dig this one. What recommendation? Mine. (Library, 02/08)

Trebby's Take: A very solid collection I think any poetry fan will enjoy....more

Picked it up at the library to read while the kids were messing around on the computer, ended up checking it out and bringing it home. It had a lot of unique, interesting poems on Buddha/Buddhism. Loved it! Was a quirky little book of poetry. I read some of the poems to the kids and they were inspired to write a few poems down too.

¿ Books ? Clerk, 2nd-hand bookshop, 8 years. Book designer / typesetter, 3 years. Book editor, 1 year. Associated with a few books* with someone's name on them identical to mine; managed not to repeat myself, as yet.

Middle school years in Hollywood commemorated by classmate James Ellroy ("Let's Twist Again"). BA + 1 year (UCLA - SFSU). Moved to San Francisco 45 years ago, where have be

Generalist.

¿ Books ? Clerk, 2nd-hand bookshop, 8 years. Book designer / typesetter, 3 years. Book editor, 1 year. Associated with a few books* with someone's name on them identical to mine; managed not to repeat myself, as yet.